40. There are one or two more
things on which he wishes condemnation to be passed. One is this: that
these men say that the body is a prison, and like a chain round the
soul; and that they assert that the soul does not depart, but returns
to the place where it 457originally was. Let me give quotations to show his opinion
on this point also. In the second book of these Commentaries, on the
passage “For this cause, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus
Christ,” he says, a little way down;

“The Apostle in several
passages calls the body the chain of the soul, because the soul is kept
shut up as it were in a prison; and thus we may speak of Paul being
kept close in the bonds of the body and does not return to be with
Christ, so that preaching to the Gentiles may be perfectly
accomplished.”

And again in the third book of
these Commentaries, on the words, “for which I am an ambassador
in chains,”29042904Eph. vi. 20 after some
discussion of the passage, he speaks in the character of that
‘other’ which is himself:

“Another contends that he
speaks thus because of the29052905Col. iii. 21 body of our
humiliation and the chain with which we are encompassed, so that we290629061 Cor. viii.
2 know not yet as we ought to know, and
see290729071 Cor. xiii.
12 by means of a mirror in a riddle: and
that he will be able to disclose the mysteries of the Gospel only when
he has cast off this chain and gone forth free from his prison. Yet
perhaps even in chains that man may be considered as free who has his
conversation in heaven, and of whom it may be said:29082908Rom. viii. 9 “You are not in the prison nor in
the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwelleth
in you.”

And in the Commentary on
Paul’s Epistle to Philemon, at the place where he says29092909Philem. 23 “Epaphras my fellow-prisoner
greeteth you,” some way down he says:

“Possibly, however, as
some think, a more recondite and mysterious view is set before us,
namely, that the two companions had been captured and bound and brought
down into this vale of tears.”